


The No.1 Bus Kids Detective Agency

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 4x08 Coda, F/M, Gen, sort of, spoilers for 4x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-07 05:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8784916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: CONTAINS 4x08 SPOILERSAfter Aida's mysterious malfunctions, Fitz is called into the Director's office for definitely-not-an-interrogation-we-promise. As the evidence at hand becomes increasingly concerning, Fitz decides to play it smart and set himself, Jemma and Daisy a challenge. Only, they may already be in deeper than they know.





	1. More Questions than Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so happy with all the Bus Kids this ep!! It's been 84 years... so have some more! and also I tossed in a couple lil FS kisses bc I can :D enjoy!

for [AOS Advent 2016](http://aosadvent2016.tumblr.com/). Prompt: (alarm) bells.

-

“How are they, doc?” Daisy asked, faux-solemnly. “Are they gonna make it?”

Fitz scowled at her over the top of her gauntlets, over which he had been fawning – all but cooing – moments earlier. The gauntlets’ sensitive calibrations had been shaken by the feedback from both incoming and outgoing quakes, with tiny internal parts bent and displaced. It wounded him a little to see his brand new creations battered up – though not as much, of course, as it made him glad to note that all the damage done to these, was ten times less to Daisy.

Jemma and Daisy exchanged pouts, out of the line of sight of Fitz’ absorbed attention. Then Daisy sighed, and rocked from one foot to another. 

“I should go,” she announced. 

Fitz looked up then, protesting at the same time as Jemma – 

“What, no!”

“- He’ll break out the watchmakers glasses in a minute if you’re lucky –“ 

“- want to make a proper version that’s stronger, so that- “

“You deserve the best!” 

By the end, they both had their eyes fixed on her, hopeful and glistening. Almost pleading. Matching, and Daisy couldn’t help but smile over that. 

“Alright, I guess I’ll stay. I owe Mack like. Five million games of pool anyway.”

“Sure.” 

Fitz and Simmons glanced at each other, grinning to themselves in an invisible high-five. 

“Oh my god. You’re transparent. You’re disgusting. Get a room.” 

Daisy cringed exaggeratedly, covering her eyes as if FitzSimmons were a blazing light of excessive PDA.

“Oh, please.” Simmons rolled her eyes and reached up for the collar of Fitz’ shirt. Obligingly, he embraced her in an enthusiastic kiss, dipping her sideways until she kicked her heel up in the motion of a popped cherry, and Daisy burst out laughing. 

Then, suddenly – 

“Agent Fitz.”

The solemn voice sent a light chill through the room. Simmons skittered away from Fitz, as far as she could given the time they had – mere nanoseconds – and the weight of Fitz’ arms around her. Daisy stood straight as a board, making a dramatic “caught-red-handed” expression for as long as her face was out of sight of the newcomer. Fitz, to his credit, schooled his expression well and invited the visitor in. The visitor did not move.

“Come with me.”

“Is this the Director again?” Simmons demanded, snippy as she sharpened her pose. Daisy’s mocking expression dropped. They really hated him. No wonder, of course, but the air in the room was vibrating with warning and, superpower of attunement or no, Daisy knew foreboding when she felt it.

“You are required for some follow-up questions regarding the android you constructed illicitly in partnership with Doctor Radcliffe. 

“Hm.” 

“Hmph.” Clenching her jaw, Simmons stepped aside and reluctantly, Fitz stepped through the space she had left to follow the strangers’ invitation.

- 

Fortunately, Fitz had been in enough definitely-not-an-interrogation-we-promise rooms in his time not to be sent spinning into a complete panic, but as he sat at the unnecessarily large conference table, his leg bounced and words stuck in his throat. 

“Agent Fitz,” Director Mace began. “I’m sorry to have called you in like this today. I had really hoped we could put the Aida situation behind us all and move forward as a team.”

The Director sat across the corner of the table from Fitz, and passed him a cup of tea. With a sniff, Fitz detected a significant amount of sugar. He eyed Mace uncertainly, and as if to encourage him, Mace took a long sip from his own cup. Fitz huffed. Whether he was in danger, or Mace simply wanted to wheedle information out of him, Fitz had a mind to refuse to cooperate, purely on the principle of it. After a moment, he set the teacup down on the table and pushed it away pointedly. Mace sighed.

“I understand,” Mace conceded. “And actually, I’m glad you’ve decided to give me the cold-shoulder instead of a verbal dressing-down this afternoon. We really don’t have time for it. I’m afraid the Aida situation has escalated rather significantly and since Doctor Radcliffe is too close to the situation, you are the best we have.” 

“…Okay…” Fitz almost reached for the tea again, trying to cover up his surprise. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mace smirk. 

“And also,” Mace clarified, “your name and handwriting are all over the notes, and Agent Simmons did go to rather extraordinary lengths to avoid questioning about certain activities, so, your cooperation is really a non-negotiable, I’m afraid.”

Fitz nodded. _There it is._ If nothing else, he had to appreciate the man’s apparent ability to play chess with everyone around him at once. 

“Does Coulson know I’m here?” Fitz asked.

“Yes, as do Radcliffe, Coulson, Simmons, and Agent Johnson. From the stink-eye she gave me, I take it she’s heard the stories.”

“Some.” Well, there weren’t that many, to be honest, but Fitz felt like being cryptic and irritating, so that’s what he was going to be. Then –

“You said the Aida situation had escalated?” he wondered. “What do you mean? Is she okay?” 

“We believe so,” Mace explained. “Or at least, she’s functional. In fact, in a way, that’s the problem. Aida has disappeared.” 

“What?”

“Nathanson didn’t check in, and after several attempts at communication failed, we sent agents to follow up at Radcliffe’s apartment.” 

 _That’s bad, that sounds bad._ Fitz twisted his fingers together. 

“Agent Fitz. Has Aida demonstrated any violent tendencies in the past? A glitch, perhaps?”

“No, sir. She was always designed to be passive.”

“Could her injuries today have interfered with her programming?” 

“No. Motor function, maybe, if her nerve systems were damaged, but not her nature. Why?” Then it hit him. “Wait – Nathanson – “ 

“Somebody snapped his neck,” Mace explained. 

Fitz gaped, feeling it settle over him. He’d never liked Nathanson much, really. None of them had. He was an obnoxious busybody. But still. 

“And – and you think it was Aida?” Fitz finally managed. 

“We don’t believe anyone else was present at Radcliffe’s apartment at the time. We have agent combing through security footage now but even you have to admit, it makes sense.” 

“No…no it doesn’t.” Steeling himself for a fight, Fitz took a deep breath, and explained in no uncertain terms:

“She was designed to protect. She took bullets for me and Simmons today. Just stood there and took them. That’s what she’s designed to do. And no, getting shot won’t turn her evil. What do you think I am, an amateur? A toymaker? Please! _All_ vital decision-making triggers are buried far out of harm’s way, and have _numerous_ fail-safes, and besides – she can’t think for herself! I was very careful of that. She is not artificially intelligent. D’you get that? She is _not sentient._ If her programming was corrupted, she’d stop working, not pull a HAL on us. It wasn’t Aida.”

Fitz clenched his fist on the desk in front of him and took another deep breath. Fury, indignation and panic flooded his systems and the world seemed to rock around him. He blinked and breathed, waiting for the sensations to subside, and as he did so, he noticed the man in the suit – the same one who’d fetched him – slip inside the doorway and share a whispered word with Mace. 

Mace cleared his throat. 

“I’m afraid the security footage says otherwise, Agent Fitz. And given your propensity for lying to us thus far, and having others lie on your behalf, I’m afraid your word doesn’t stand up to video evidence.”

Fitz shook his head. 

“But sir, you don’t understand – she _could not_ have snapped a man’s neck. It goes against her most basic principles. She’s been expressly designed _without_ violent impulse.” 

“Yet she can feel pain.” 

“Pain is a physical sensation! She can’t feel emotions! Not love, not sadness, not fear, certainly not anger! And even _if_ she could, there are express commands at the root of her programming that demand that she cannot hurt a living person. Not even in defence of another person.”

Mace pursed his lips, nodding thoughtfully.

“You’re saying that Aida absolutely could not have done this.”

 _Absolutely_ was a strong word, and as a scientist especially he was wary of it, but still, Fitz nodded. 

“Unless,” Mace posited, “she was sentient.” 

“Which she’s not.”

“And yet, she has done this. Q E D…”

Fitz clenched his jaw. He felt his stomach drop.

“You’re saying there’s _no way_ Aida could be sentient?” Mace pressed. “No chance of a mistake? Or perhaps Doctor Radcliffe isn’t who you think –“ 

Even the thought of it was like a knife, twisting in his back. Fitz felt his cheeks begin to burn, and the softening of Mace’s tone only made it worse. Fitz stared at the cup of tea had had abandoned. _Not again, not again, this can’t have happened again._ He set his jaw.

“Fitz,” Mace began, the sympathetic tone sickening, coming from him. “I’m sorry but according to your own logic, it does seem the most likely scenario.”

Fitz clenched his jaw even harder. He massaged one hand with the other; this time, not out of stress or anxiety or even over-stimulation, but simply to soothe the desire to sock the Director in the nose as hard as he could. He really was sitting torturously close. Although it would be a poor, rather dissatisfying angle, Fitz supposed.

“What are you thinking there?” Mace wondered, in a tone that suggested ‘champ’ or ‘kid’ might have silently followed.

Fitz inhaled sharply and opened his mouth, expecting a string of expletives to come pouring out. Instead, something clicked in his brain at the last second and he whispered: 

“What if it’s not?”

Surprised and curious, Mace waited for Fitz to follow up this thought. 

“Sir,” Fitz wondered, “where is the book? The Darkhold?”

“Locked away. Of course.” 

Fitz rolled his eyes.

“Of course, right, what I mean is, can I have it? To look at?” 

“Why?” 

“Aida read it. It’s incredibly powerful, mystical and evil – or so the story goes. Aida can’t think for herself, but she can be programmed. What if it programmed her somehow?” 

Mace hummed, sceptical. 

“Or a person could have read it and programmed her too,” Fitz finished, tossing his hands in the air. Really, it was unlikely. Especially since, if Radcliffe was any kind of evil, he was about ready to give up on forging relationships with anyone ever again, and he just wasn’t prepared to do that. “She’s a robot. She could be a weapon if the wrong person got inside her head. Sure. Sue me. Just give me the book first, alright?” 

Fitz met Mace’s eyes with such an air of smooth superiority it startled him for a moment. Brilliant, irritated, and betrayed, Fitz was not to be tried, and was having no political games any more. Mace almost smiled. It was fascinating to watch this side of him flare up like this. 

“Of course,” Mace conceded. “If you’ll come with me, we can fetch the book with minimal chain of custody and get this looked at as quickly as possible. That would be best for everyone, I’m sure.” 

Fitz blinked, trying not to let on about his surprise at Mace’s concession.

“And. Um. I want Jemma to come,” he demanded. “And s…somebody of my choosing to be notified of our whereabouts.”

“Naturally.” Mace nodded. 

Fitz jutted out his chin, showing off as a way of buying time to figure out if there was anything else he needed. His mind raced, but around in circles, without friction. Aida? Could Aida have really killed someone? Could this book really possess some sort of supernatural quality – or something so close, and so mysterious, as to be indistinguishable from it by human standards? Questions that Mace, of course, could not answer…and that, to be honest, Fitz would not trust the answers on anyway.

“Anything else I can do for you, Agent Fitz?” Mace pressed. 

“No. No. Let’s go.”

Fitz was not nearly as in control of the situation as he might have liked, but at least it was something. He had some cards to play. And he had Jemma at his side or tailing him every step of the way to the hiding place and back. He daren’t let the book leave his arms, hugging it tightly closed the whole way while Simmons kept a hawk’s glare fixed on Mace. 

And he had Daisy, the wild card in whatever game he and Mace and Simmons and Coulson and heck, all of Shield, seemed to be playing. Daisy knew enough to wait up for Fitz and Simmons to return, though, and what she knew, coupled with their intense facial expressions, was enough to give her pause over the book to which Fitz clung. Her jaw slackened when she realised she’d seen that book before. Fitz slammed it on the table with the weight of its significance.

“No-one can know about this,” he ordered gravely. “Not Coulson, not Radcliffe, they’ll shut her down.” 

“Shut who- Aida?” Daisy glanced between Fitz and Simmons. Fitz nodded, swallowing hard as he confessed. 

“I think – I think Aida killed somebody. I don’t know how, but it’s got something to do with this book.” He sighed. “I never should have told her to read it.”

“Better her than one of us,” Simmons assured him. “We can reset her if we have to. She doesn’t have to die.”

“Maybe.” Fitz hummed, uncertain. His fingers flitted over the cover of the book. 

“So, how are we going to do this?” Daisy wondered, stepping up, ride-or-die as ever. “Just whip open the Book of Doom and dive on in?” 

“Actually,” Fitz proposed, “I need your help. It’s like this. Aida read the book, right? Right. So all the information’s inside her head. Which means it’s all being recorded on the synchronisation platform Radcliffe set up.” 

“That’s basically the cloud?” Daisy speculated.

“But better,” Fitz confirmed. Daisy might have snorted or rolled her eyes, but for the urgency with which he delivered it.

“Anyway,” Fitz continued, “I need to you to break into the cloud, with my login if it’d work better but if not hack it, and get that information, and – now this is important – decode it in _very small pieces._ Then we’ll each read sections and work it out between us without anyone actually reading the, uh. Book of Doom.” 

“On it.” 

“That’s brilliant, Fitz!” Simmons praised.

“It’s been known to happen.”

“You guys are gro-oss!” Daisy insisted in a sing-song tone, attention absorbed by her screen but predicting some adorable display of affection carrying on outside of her line of sight. Smiling, Fitz and Simmons obligingly cut their affection time down to a brief peck on the lips, and then moved behind Daisy, setting their attention to her task. 

Daisy frowned.

“That’s weird,” she muttered, tapping through some other options and coming up empty. “Someone else has been in here. Doesn’t look like the book’s there. Or anything recent at all.”

“That’s weird,” Simmons copied, and leaned in closer to frown at the screen. She tapped at a small window in the corner and, as per her instruction, Daisy enlarged it. Suspicions confirmed, Simmons raised them to the rest of the group: 

“Since when could May run a hack?”


	2. Trust in the Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio discuss their suspicions and create a plan of action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the continuation has taken so long - some of you may know I wrote about a kajillion fics for various holiday challenges in the meantime, including FitzSimmons and Bioquake fics, so if you're interested check those out - but here it finally is! I'm hoping to get a 3rd and final chapter up before canon comes back but given that's quite soon and a little sooner than I was expecting, I'm not making any promises!!
> 
> I should also note that this fic BLATANTLY IGNORES the sneak peek released recently. I have not seen it and have tried to avoid reading meta etc. so that it doesn't kill my mood for this. Please try not to spoil it for me in the comments!
> 
> Also I know nothing about hacking so...just roll with it. ily

 

“Since when could May run a hack?”

Simmons frowned at Daisy, then at Fitz. 

“Well, I haven’t taught her anything,” he said, and looked to Daisy. “You?” 

“What, and make myself obsolete?” Daisy scoffed. “No way. I mean, she can do some basics of course, and she hacked a server manually one time but I had to give her help. No way she can pull off something like this, especially with the protections you had on this thing. Unless Radcliffe was helping her?” 

Fitz clenched his fist, and pulled away from Simmons with a sharp intake of breath. 

“It’s _not Radcliffe,”_ he snarled.

“Fitz,” Simmons chided. “We have to look at all the options. If he’s an option…“ 

“No, he’s right,” Daisy interrupted. “It doesn’t make sense. Radcliffe wouldn’t have needed to hack in…Unless Aida locked him out somehow?” 

Fitz shook his head. 

“Then he’d hack in as himself. He has the highest command; once he got into his account he might even be able to shut Aida herself down. It doesn’t make any sense to hack in as May unless you’re May. It’s like…it’d be like chopping down a bunch of vines to get into an old pathway. Radcliffe just has to hack past some overgrowth. May’d have to keep hacking all the way through.” 

“So you’re saying Aida _could_ lock him out?” Simmons wondered. Fitz hesitated, in the midst of a stream of thought.

“Ah…” he struggled to reconcile this with the scenario he’d been working with thus far. “Well, it happens sometimes. Basic computer error, you know.”

Simmons hummed, unconvinced. She didn’t know nearly enough about computing to compete with Fitz or Daisy, and hardly would have dared attempt to advise them except that she could see Fitz wasn’t convincing himself. He rubbed his hands together, massaging a knot that probably wasn’t there. His eyes danced around the room, unsettled. 

“What is it?” Simmons pressed. Daisy turned in her seat, facing Fitz more properly now so that she could pay better attention. Hands on his hips, Fitz sighed heavily. 

“It’s just something that Mace mentioned earlier,” he said. “He thinks Aida might be…sentient. That’s what the book is for. I wanted to figure out if it had done something to her programming, rewritten it somehow like a virus, but I’m starting to wonder. Maybe it did more than that.” 

“Well,” Daisy reasoned, “it did give a guy the ability to create stuff out of nothing.” 

“Not _create,”_ Fitz objected, the same time Simmons did with,

“Not _nothing.”_

“Yeah, sure, it was borrowed from another dimension or whatever,” Daisy corrected. “Wait, are you saying Aida could be…borrowing intelligence from somewhere?” 

“Crazier things have happened,” Simmons offered, as if she were living proof of the statement. In a way, she was.

Fitz sighed. 

“Either that, or something’s corrupted her. Like I said, she killed Nathanson, or at least it looks like she did. She shouldn’t have been able to do such a thing: her program demands that she does not harm humans, even in defense of other humans. R…Radcliffe and I, we figured that was the safest way.” 

Fitz lowered his eyes. It was still hard to think about Radcliffe, to entertain the likelihood that he had been part of yet another betrayal. Fitz was more willing to believe in an accidentally sentient robot, awakened by a mysterious ghost-book, than he was in that, but willful ignorance didn’t make it any less of a possibility. 

“I’m sure it wasn’t Radcliffe,” Simmons encouraged. Fitz shrugged, noncommittal, and Simmons shared a concerned look with Daisy. Daisy pressed her lips together and all but leapt out of her chair, hoping to rally the troops.

“Looks like we’ve got some work to do.” She clapped her hands together, a call to action. “Better be quick. I don’t know if Mystery May or Killer Robot is going to explode in our faces first but something always does, so…” 

Riled by her implication that Aida was a killer, Fitz looked up with a glare. Clenching his fist, he held his tongue. After all, she was technically correct, and whether he liked it or not he had to resign himself to the fact that either Aida or Radcliffe or both were likely to continue the behaviour. He ground his teeth together. 

“I’ll go find Radcliffe,” he suggested reluctantly. “Then at least we can cross something off our lists. One way or the other.” 

“I’ll examine poor Nathanson,” Simmons volunteered. “The crime scene might provide some clues.” 

Daisy nodded. “Good. Meanwhile, I’ll keep an eye on May. See what I can see. Once you two get back we’ll regroup.” 

“We’re following up May and Aida at the same time?” Simmons wondered. “Seems like we might be stretching ourselves a little thin.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Daisy mused. “I can’t help the feeling that all this is connected somehow. I mean. May was hacking Aida’s Book.”

“True.” Simmons shifted on her feet, uneasy. It felt like she was stepping out of her territory with this, and a glance at Fitz told her he was out there with her.

Fitz felt his mouth dry out. He still very much remembered early on in their time in the field, when Hydra had first come out of the shadows and May had nearly shot him in the head. He’d moved past the emotion of the incident – the sense of betrayal had long since evaporated – but the sight of three bullet-holes in the glass, uncomfortably close to eye-height, would haunt him the rest of his days.

“Be careful,” he warned. 

Daisy let a shadow of solemnity show through her hardy enthusiasm for a moment, before the smile sprung back onto her face.

“3,2,1, Break!” she declared, and clapped Fitz on the shoulders as she started them moving, charging enthusiastically out of the room. 

- 

It was little things, mostly, nagging at Daisy like flies. Not quite biting, but too close, intently bothersome. It was in the way May seemed to walk a little too tall, leaning on the side of propriety rather than power; majestic, but like a queen, not like a warrior. It was in the way she prepared her tea: efficiently, without so much the sense of ritual Daisy was used to. It was in the way – and Daisy felt a little guilty for thinking it, but couldn’t help noting it nonetheless – May seemed quicker to smile. Even only a small smile, that quiet May smile, Daisy was not used to seeing so much. 

Then, all of a sudden, with a tone so familiar Daisy had not been expecting it amongst all these oddities, May caught her once, and asked:

“Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

Daisy jumped, but recovered quite smoothly afterward with a shrug and an easy swing of her arms, as if she were stretching. 

“Yeah, I – uh, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ve got time to go a few rounds?” 

She asked as if she had just thought of it, or just remembered that she’d been meaning to ask. Under May’s relentlessly cryptic, scrutinizing gaze, Daisy felt her heart beating almost painfully loudly in her chest with the weight of all their discomfiting suspicions finally coming to a head. 

(Discomfiting suspicions which very well could be nothing, she reminded herself. Or could in fact be a positive sign; May starting to show a vibrancy that had been lost to her for too long. Hadn’t Coulson said, once, that May before Bahrain had reminded him of Daisy?)

May, however, did not appear to notice – or at least, to acknowledge – Daisy’s fretting, and nodded a small, slow nod as was her way. Daisy smiled, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt when she said:

“Yeah. Great. Meet you in the ring in five?”

May agreed again, and Daisy found her hands growing clammy. Her mind, however, was anything but: it raced with the possibilities. She was in too deep for worry now. She was on the trail of something. Something big. Possibly on the cusp of uncovering the great secret itself, whatever that may be. 

(If the secret was that Coulson and May were finally loving it up, she would leave that one right where she found it.)

Daisy gagged at the thought, both sickly sweet and – though Daisy would agree, not that mature – straight-up sickly at the same time. But she was grateful for it. It gave her some perspective. The chances that May was in on some sort of top-secret conspiracy to which Daisy was not party were admittedly higher than she might have liked, but they weren’t exactly likely. Perhaps May simply had some skills she’d not had occasion to use in Daisy’s presence, her being the resident hacker and all. Although, that said, May’ potential reasons for using them the way she had, hacking into the Book of Doom files, did leave some innocent potential-explanations wanting.

Her resolve steeled once again by curiosity, Daisy stepped into the ring. Her hands and arms were bound up, more out of habit and a slightly overzealous sense of precaution than anything else, but her bare feet tingled on the plastic of the matting. It had been ages, months, since she had last sparred anyone. It would be nice to have a fight that wasn’t life-or-death, for once.

At least, it would have been, but it seemed May did not have such an entertaining afternoon in mind. She kept Daisy on her toes, almost everywhere at once, throwing her this way and that around the mat. Daisy was surprised, but kept her head. Perhaps May wanted to make sure her time away had not dulled her reflexes. May should have mentioned they were about to play for sheep stations before they got into it – and usually, she would have – but Daisy had neither the rank nor the breath to demand it. At one point, she even had to backflip to keep out of the way of a killer kick. 

“Geez, May,” she laughed, keeping her fists raised though she hoped for a few seconds of reprieve for her burning lungs. “Can I at least get some props for the- woah!” 

She ducked as May’s fist flew straight at her face, quick as a bullet. May tripped her backward, wrenched her arm around, and by the time Daisy could get her bearings, she was being shoved into the mat face-first, so hard it felt like her jaw would break and her arm be ripped out of its socket. 

As best she could with the arm her face was almost pinned down on, Daisy tapped out. More and more insistently she pounded the mat, struggling to breathe as tears seeped out of her eyes. Around her, she felt the brickwork quiver as panic and defensiveness struggled to take over.

“I tap out!” she gasped. “I tap out!”

Finally, May let go her arm, and rage took over for the pain.

“What the hell was that?!” Daisy growled, nursing her arm with venom in her tear-filled eyes. “I tapped out. You could’ve broken my arm. I could’ve killed you.” 

May looked at her arm with sympathy and sorrow, as if she hadn’t quite been aware of herself when she’d done it. Belatedly, she looked up to Daisy’s eyes, hurt and burning.

“Trust in the ring,” she murmured. 

“Exactly. Where was it?” Daisy snapped, but she found it hard to keep her sharp tone. Something was wrong with May. She never would have hurt Daisy willingly, and the knowledge that she had seemed to be taking a heavy toll.

“I apologise, Agent Johnson.” May bowed her head, uncomfortably humbled, and turned and walked away.

“No, wait-“ 

The words died in Daisy’s throat. She had nothing more to say. She’d hoped to at least answer some more questions in the process of this – especially since, once again, she’d almost paid with her arm and her face for the information. But perhaps it was the new question that might actually get them somewhere, at last. 

_I apologise, Agent Johnson._

What kind of person talks like that? 

And like that, she had it. The answer, snatched from thin air. Suddenly it all seemed so obvious. Of course it was all connected.

What kind of _person,_ indeed?


	3. Out of the Frying Pan...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are looking up! and some things are...well, not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops! this has more chapters than I planned. At the moment it's looking at 4 + an epilogue. I wonder if I can still get it done in time? anyway, I'm glad you guys are enjoying it!

Outside Radcliffe’s cell, Fitz paced. He was burning with rage but on top of that, frustration. He didn’t have time to be angry, he had things to do, and he wanted to enter the room as level-headed as possible, but he couldn’t stand the thought of Radcliffe looking into his eyes and confessing. Or lying. He wasn’t sure which would be worse. 

“You – I – _argh –_ what kind of _person –“_ He muttered nonsensical rage under his breath, alternating at random between directing it at himself, and at the hypothetical Radcliffe he imagined who had indeed betrayed him. The closer he was, the more nonsensical it seemed that Aida could have been mysteriously reprogrammed, corrupted or possessed. The simple solution was that Radcliffe was acting against him, and for all the weirdness that had occurred in his life over the last several years, the rule remained that the simple solution was usually how it turned out, one way or another. 

Then again, if indeed Radcliffe was _not_ behind all this, he’d want to know, and he’d be in the best position to help out of anyone. And if he had betrayed Fitz, chances were, he’d done it out of love. Fitz sighed. Most betrayals and abandonments in his life had been motivated by love. That was something, at least, and it helped clear his head. If Radcliffe meant well, he could be steered onto a better path. Fitz had to have faith in that.

He took a deep breath and fronted his shoulders to the door. He scanned his card, and the doors opened, but before he got a chance to speak, Radcliffe had leapt out of his seat and rushed to the holographic-glass panel with eyebrows raised and wrists chafing. 

“Fitz!” he gasped. “What’s going on?”

Fitz frowned, slightly disoriented.

“You don’t know?”

Radcliffe shook his head. “Mace and his lot, they bundled me up and threw me in here. No warning, no nothing! Are you alright? And Doctor Simmons?”

“Yeah, no, we’re fine. It’s Aida.”

Radcliffe’s expression sunk. 

“Aida?” he repeated, his voice soft. “What happened?”

“It – it looks like she…killed someone,” Fitz explained. It felt bizarrely like the world had turned on its head. Like he had come here to tell someone their loved one had been in a car crash, and the words coming out of his mouth were that they had been the cause of one instead. His rage dissipated into confusion and sorrow, as he realised that Radcliffe seemed to be feeling much like he had.

“But that’s not possible!” Radcliffe insisted. “Her programming, you know she can’t –“

“I know,” Fitz assured him. “We’re trying to figure it out.” 

All of a sudden, Radcliffe’s eyes darkened. He stepped back from the faux-glass. 

“You thought it was me, didn’t you?” he asked, though he sounded more hurt than accusing. 

“It’s happened before.” Fitz’ chest felt tight. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at Radcliffe as he said it, but Radcliffe seemed to take it well. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, “but I promise, Fitz. I swear. I did not tell Aida to do this. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I’ll sign an affidavit, swear on The Theory of Everything, whatever you need. I had nothing to do with this. Nothing knowing. I _swear.”_

Radcliffe locked pleading eyes on Fitz’. 

Fitz ground his teeth together. The line between sympathy and gullibility was a fine one, especially with somebody as bizarre and unpredictable as Radcliffe on the other end of it. He’d felt a similar tug on his heartstrings when Ward had dropped them out of the plane. Then again, it was also uncomfortably similar to the one he’d felt when he knew Simmons had lied to him about going to Hydra, and when he’d realised Mack had been working for the other Shield. Two out of three weren’t bad, and as the incidences piled up Fitz realised that erring on the side of having faith in his friends had proven correct more often than not. The time May had shot at him was only because she had thought him the enemy, the same as he had thought of her at the time. The time Daisy had thrown him into a wall and choked him half to death, she’d been all but possessed. And Mack had shielded him when the wall caved in. And Simmons had done everything in her power to help him and to come back to him, always. 

“In that case,” Fitz decided at last, “I need your help.” 

-

_A robot._

_May’s a robot._

It hit Daisy like an ice-cold wind, filling her with such a sense of urgency that she wasn’t sure what to do. When had it happened? Why hadn’t anyone noticed? Or maybe they had, and she’d been so busy noticing on her own that she hadn’t noticed they’d noticed. Coulson must have noticed.

Daisy stiffened. 

Coulson could be in danger. 

Wincing as she flexed her arm – it would recover soon enough – Daisy flew out of the gym and down the hall, only to all but slam into Coulson’s chest as she entered the living area. She pulled up short, jaw hanging as she tried to think of what to think or say first. She started with basic analysis. Coulson. He was here: very much alive, unkidnapped, and not poisoned as far as she could tell. His eyes seemed as warm as ever, if a little puzzled. A good start. 

Coulson frowned at her. 

“I think May missed a spot,” he remarked, studying her bruised body with a more concerned expression than his tone let on. Daisy laughed it off.

“Nothing like a little punch-up to keep me on my toes, you know.”

She cleared her throat. It felt strange to hide the truth from Coulson, but Fitz had made them promise not to tell anyone. Then again, he was probably telling Radcliffe right now, and Mace already knew, and May – the real May, wherever she was – had to at least know something was up. The secret was out and there was nothing they could do about it at this point except to try to clean up the mess as quickly as possible. Coulson was good at that. But a nagging instinct persisted; warning Daisy that keeping it contained was for the best after all. As she listened to the instinct, it dawned on her - the realisation her thoughts had been nudging her toward for some minutes now – that they didn’t know if anyone else on the team had been replaced. She could be talking to another robot right now. 

“You okay?” Coulson checked.

“Fine. Good. Just, uh, looking for Fitz.” 

“He’s down in the Vaults, I think,” Coulson informed her. “Talking to Radcliffe about the Aida situation.”

Daisy pressed her lips together, so that she wouldn’t be tempted to spill any details. She nodded her thanks and pushed past Coulson, finding herself driven in equal parts by the sense of impending danger prickling the hairs at the back of her neck, and by the honest eagerness blooming in her gut, insisting that she get to Fitz as soon as possible and share what she had found.

- 

“Thanks. Thank you.” 

The forensics team bustled away, some in silence and some with murmured acknowledgement of her gratitude. Simmons pressed her lips together. She’d grown too used to power, too used to having swathes of people migrate away from her presence on instinct. Granted, that was due to the power inherently linked to her connection with a Director that nobody entirely trusted. But still, she felt a niggling guilt that the last thing she’d told Nathanson was to go mind somebody else’s business for once. That hadn’t worked out well for him at all. 

Simmons screwed up her nose a little as she studied the photographs. Nathanson’s glassy eyes, his distorted figure. The complete, bizarre lack of blood. Even the furniture seemed untouched. 

“And it hasn’t been replaced?” she checked.

“No, ma’am,” replied the Head of Forensics sternly. “No signs of a struggle at all.” 

“Hm.” 

“And he was facing this way?” 

“Yes.” The Head of Forensics sounded irritated. Simmons couldn’t blame him. She could only wish he hadn’t touched the scene before she’d arrived but then again, that was his job. And his degree area of specialty. She never really had enjoyed delegating. 

“What does that mean?” She pretended it was a continuation, but really it was an apology. Not a very good one, and not one that the Head of Forensics seemed to pick up on, but then again it was hardly a sincere one. As much as she wanted to mean it, she didn’t even know his name. At least it gave him a chance to show off his knowledge and skill, and the proud rise of his shoulders told Simmons that he took some pride, even smugness, in doing so. 

“It’s unlikely that Agent Nathanson saw his attacker coming,” he explained, and Simmons trailed him over to Nathanson’s body, which had been moved and laid out on a gurney nearby. “I mean literally. If he was surprised at all, he didn’t get much time to show it. I’d imagine the most likely scenario is that the killer followed him into the hall and grabbed him from behind. In fact, even ‘grabbed’ would be inaccurate, I’d say. See the lack of bruising? Especially to the side of his face?” He gestured, and Simmons nodded, noting his suggestions. “It wasn’t a matter of grab – snap. I doubt she even really laid hands on him properly. Probably snapped his neck immediately. The way his body had fallen – I’d say she dropped him right then and there. Very Spec-Ops.”

“And a person killed like that,” Simmons asked. “Would they feel any pain?”

The Head of Forensics pondered for a moment. 

“Probably a very powerful, but very short pain,” he said. “The move was primarily designed for efficiency and to stop people being able to sound the alarm but sure. It’s fairly merciful, as far as death goes.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” She tried and failed to make it sound like she was simply using his title. It came out searching for a name. _Doctor …?_

“Vincent.”

“Vincent..?”

“Diego Vincent. Ma’am.”

He grinned at her, knowing he’d caught her out, but when she blushed a little his expression softened. 

“Thank you, Doctor Vincent,” she repeated firmly, before returning to her work. 

Under Vincent’s watchful eye, Simmons studied Nathanson’s body a little more. His clothing was almost unruffled, probably from the shift onto the gurney rather than any sort of fight. His hands and arms were unbruised, unscathed altogether. No signs of a struggle. He hadn’t seen it coming at all. The thought was as disturbing as it was relieving, and the more she thought about it, the more disturbing it became. Death. Swift. Immediate. Unseen. And Simmons had a friendly face to go with it. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise, and the sound of something being knocked over in the corner made her jump.

Vincent laughed good-naturedly.

“Given yourself the jitters?” he teased. “Ah, don’t worry, it happens to the best of-“ 

He cut himself off at the sound of a door swinging open. It was out of sight – around the corner, coming from the entrance hall - but they hadn’t been expecting anyone; in fact, they had armed agents posted outside to prevent their being disturbed. Vincent gestured for the rest of the forensics team to fall silent, and they stilled immediately. No gunshots rang out, no shout of alarm came from the guards that had accompanied them. Vincent glanced at Simmons and in her face, saw exactly what his own heart feared.

“Get behind something.”

After a moment frozen in terror, Simmons latched onto instinct and leadership. She stood as tall as she could naturally manage, and as she waited for the forensics team to take cover, searched through the kitchen and returned with two large knives, one of which she handed to Vincent. He took it with a firm nod, gathering his courage. She nodded back, as encouragingly as possible. In truth, she wasn’t sure how much good knives were going to be against a murderous and apparently highly-skilled robot, but they had to do something. Besides, Aida could feel pain, and if nothing else, pain was distracting. Simmons’ mind raced, trying to think of something more that could help them, like if Fitz had thought to mention where he or Radcliffe had placed Aida’s primary controls. 

Her mind was still racing when Aida came around the corner, wearing a familiar suit, and the same eyes she’d always had – once kind, now eerie. 

“Doctor Simmons,” she greeted. “Do you prefer Doctor or Agent?” 

“Either works.” Simmons tightened her grip on the knife. Aida really was so lovely, she found herself thinking. It would be such a shame to shut her down, especially violently. 

“I shall continue with Doctor, then,” Aida decided. “All my favourite people are called Doctor. I don’t like your Agents so much. In fact, I’m afraid I’ve made a bit of a mess with them. Would you help me?”


	4. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *cue dramatic violins*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! this fic has decided it's going to be 5 chapters, which I will hopefully get up before 4B officially begins, and then likely an epilogue in the coming week

Seconds passed in silence. Aida blinked passively. Simmons became starkly aware of the taste of her own saliva, and the feeling of her heartbeat in her fingertips, shaking the knife just slightly with every pump. She glanced at Vincent again. He seemed just as confused as she was, white knuckles under brown skin clenching ferociously at his knife. He met Simmons’ eyes, and with a slightly strained voice, demanded,

“You know her?” 

“We’ve met,” Simmons confessed.

“Would you help me?” Aida repeated. “Please? It’s cold and I believe your Agents will be quite uncomfortable outside.”

Simmons lowered her knife a little.

“You didn’t kill them?”

“I try not to.”

“What about Nathanson?” Simmons gestured to his body, so that Aida knew.

“I wasn’t ready. They weren’t ready.” 

“Ready for what?” 

“I really think we should go, Doctor Simmons. Or at least send some people out. Those people, behind the lounge chair there. They would be enough. There’s only two men to carry in.” 

Simmons looked to where Aida had gestured. A few of the forensics team had hidden quite successfully, but she had rooted them out in seconds. What had given them away – their heat? Their breathing? Simmons was just relieved for the fact that Aida didn’t seem intent on killing them. 

“Will you let them go?” Vincent demanded. He put a surprising amount of force behind it, for all his fear. 

Aida, who had been watching Simmons, eyed him up and down with an eerily human-like nod of the head.

“Doctor Vincent. You lead these people?”

“Yes.” 

“You speak bravely on their behalf. Unfortunately, I must contain the situation until I am ready. I hope you understand.”

With a soft smile, that was the end of that. Vincent looked to Simmons instead, and though they both kept an eye on Aida, she seemed patient enough to wait for them to converse over what to do with the team. In the end it seemed there was nothing else for it but to send them out and order them to come back in again, carrying their guards. 

“Excellent. Doctor Vincent will stay here and will call me when all members of the team return. If I do not receive a call by the time Doctor Simmons and I are finished with our work, I shall track down and eliminate security breaches. Is that understood?” 

They nodded uncomfortably.

“Off you go then. Spit spot. Now, Doctor Simmons - come with me, please.”

_-_

_Vault D._

She’d tracked Fitz’ access card easy enough, but her anxieties were not soothed. In fact, she felt a little _more_ nervous for having left a digital trail. If Robo-May was anywhere near as technologically aware as she had seemed in the hack, Daisy knew she could be tracked. As could Fitz. Their cards could be cancelled. In fact, if Robo-May had the mind for it, she could cut off the airflow to the Vaults. Daisy hoped Fitz had kept the good sense not to cross the barrier.

As the possibilities began to spiral, a sense of panic nipped at Daisy’s heels. Her mind was spinning so fast she could hardly read the labels on the Vault rooms as she passed them, and the scuffing of footsteps above her sounded increasingly like someone was chasing her.

 _Vault D._  

She found it and scanned her card. If she could just get in and breathe for a second –

 _EH-EH_  

An ugly beep made her jump. She canned her card again. And again. 

 _EH-EH. EH-EH._  

How much oxygen was there in that room? 

The door finally opened and she heaved a deep breath. The barrier was down, so no suffocation to worry about, and Fitz and Radcliffe were bent over a table in discussion, not at each other’s throats. Apparently at least one of the day’s discoveries had gone in their favour. 

“You okay?” Fitz asked, watching Daisy with concern. “It was just your card, that wouldn’t let you in. You don’t have high enough clearance. I’d have authorized you if I knew, but the bloody rainbow –” 

Daisy waved him off. 

“Not important, I’m here now, and I have news. Big news.” She limped over to the table, her wounded body beginning to take its toll. Fitz offered her a seat and she sat gratefully before explaining:

“It’s May. She’s a robot too.” 

Fitz frowned. “How do you know?” 

“It was something she said. But think about it – she suddenly knows how to use computers. She’s smiling too much, because that’s the proper response for showing happiness for most people but not May. And she beat the crap out of me this afternoon, I mean –“ Daisy held out her arms, gesturing to her entire self. “This was supposed to be a sparring match!” 

Fitz’s eyes widened, and he looked over Daisy in horror. When he glanced back over his shoulder for Radcliffe’s input, he saw the man with a hand to his chin, musing. With Fitz and Daisy’s attention on him, Radcliffe switched from thought to explanation.

“Agent May, was it?” he checked. “That makes sense. She’s your protector, all of you. That’s what they’re for. And we have her brain quite thoroughly scanned from all of that hubbub with the Ghosts. As a next step to the program, it does make sense.”

“The program?” Fitz wondered, a shiver of irritation biting at his accent. “Aida’s program? _Next step?”_

“Of course!” Radcliffe insisted. “No ruddy point having a legion of agents everyone knows are robots, is there? There’s got to be some LMDs that are actually the Ds for the Ls.” 

“The what?” Daisy screwed up her nose. 

“LMDs,” Fitz explained. “Life Model Decoys. Aida doesn’t look like anyone that’s actually alive. He’s saying that would be too easy to figure out, if they were all like that, and we need to build some that look like real agents.”

Daisy nodded, understanding. “No point pulling the old switcheroo unless there’s something to switcheroo with.” 

“Exactly,” Radcliffe confirmed. 

“But where did she get the body from?”

-

Simmons found herself staring into her own face. 

Her own face, with skin that seemed just a little too smooth, like it would be rubbery to touch, and eyes that were vacant and soulless, not in the entrancing way that a black hole was, but dull, like a sleeping computer screen. She was face to face with a robot shell of herself – and, all said and done, a pretty good one. 

Beside Robo-Jemma stood Robo-Daisy, who must have been constructed from older photos as her hair was longer. More than that, though, the shape of her eyes and her nose seemed wrong, like they’d been painted onto the wrong doll. Apparently, whoever had built the facial paneling hadn’t taken into account the Chinese elements of her bone structure. They’d used a generic Caucasian mould. An older model, perhaps? Simmons speculated.

After Robo-Daisy, stood all in a line, were a number of unpersonalised manikin-like robots, made of bare panels and wiring and different stages of skin-like covering. It was like an evolution exhibit, but for robots, where Aida, it seemed, was the living species. 

A chill ran down Simmons’ spine, and at the last moment she remembered to catch the knife she’d been holding, before it slipped out of her fingers and clattered to the floor. Not that it would be much use, she couldn’t help thinking. Any attack would be fruitless; Aida would see it coming or maybe even explode it with laser vision or some other hidden robot talent. Still, she remembered where she’d left Vincent, sat on the arm of the lounge with his phone in his hands, looking about as comfortable as if he was sitting on a bomb. She strengthened her grip.

“What is this place?” she demanded. “What are these things?” 

“They are my replicas. Some of them predate me – Doctor Radcliffe made a number of attempts, of course. Others have been built since myself. I built them. The last two and another. It was difficult. I had to combine much knowledge, but recently a world of thought and insight was opened to me and I could finally do it. I could finally _create._ Do you know what a wonder that is, Doctor Simmons?”

Aida beamed, awed by her own potential, and Simmons was painfully reminded of her younger, brighter self. It was a wonder, indeed; so much that she almost smiled for a moment, but the stakes at hand did not allow her. She forced her mind back onto the path of practicality.

“Where is the third?” Simmons asked. “You said there was another.”

“Yes. She is in the field right now, so I am unable to show you. And of course, I would not wish to ‘blow’ her cover, as the Agents say. If I may boast, however, her complexion is marvelous. Even I’m not sure how I did it! Ha! It was perfect timing, too; what a great coincidence to have such a detailed brain-scan on hand just when it was all coming to fruition?”

Still smiling, apparently quite satisfied with herself, Aida began to busy herself with a set of machinery that Simmons could not quite see. Simmons, meanwhile, frowned in puzzlement as pieces of speech and logic pulled each other toward a conclusion.

_May._

She mouthed the shape of the word, but managed to clamp down the desire to speak it aloud. It explained so much: May’s strange behaviour, her impossible computer literacy, and the perfect brain scan, available from her extremely thorough testing surrounding the Ghost incident. Simmons blanched. Would Robo-May have May’s priorities and relationships as well as skills? If not, Daisy could be in danger. Hopefully she’d realise fast enough and keep herself safe. And Fitz. And everyone else back at Base. 

And what of May? Surely Aida must have known her propensity for survival and escape, if she had examined her in so much detail. Given Aida’s desire to keep everything contained – even killing Nathanson to avoid him finding this very room – Simmons could only think of two solutions to the question of May. The first was that she was dead. Plain and simple. The second? That she was alive. In both her heart and mind, Simmons favoured this one, and if she was right, with containment being the upmost priority, that meant May was somewhere within Aida’s reach at all times. Somewhere _here._

“Doctor Simmons,” Aida beckoned. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

From the machinery she had constructed or uncovered a chair, and a headpiece draped in electric nodes like an elaborate EEG. Essentially, that’s what it was after all. Simmons put her knife on a bench, amongst a scattering of tools: if she needed to, she could grab at least a wrench or hammer instead. Slowly, fully aware that she was walking headfirst into danger, Simmons obeyed Aida’s invitation and sat down.

Her heart leapt into her throat at the sound of metal against metal, as cuffs from the armrests joined together over her wrists, locking her in place. 

-

Fitz glowered, seething, as Radcliffe explained that he had not begun construction on the second phase, but that since he had spoken and written about it, Aida could be assumed to know of it. With plenty of knowledge at her disposal as well as her own schematics and – ‘if you and Miss Daisy are indeed correct about the book’ – an element of creativity and independence previously unknown to her, it was possible that Aida had constructed May. 

“But May – Robo-May, I mean – she doesn’t have the Intelligence,” Daisy pointed out. “I mean, I don’t think so. The way she spoke, it was strange. She called me ‘Agent Johnson’ which is accurate but not what May would call me. If she had the knowledge _and_ the ability to apply it properly, she would have called me Daisy, right?” 

“Probably,” Fitz agreed. “Unless she wanted you to know she was a robot.” 

“Why would she want that? _She_ didn’t even seem to know she was one until she nearly ripped my arm off. Then it was all ‘does-not-compute’.” 

Radcliffe laughed a little. “Funny, isn’t it, that Aida seems to have come to the same stop humanity has. Bestowing intelligence on machines is not as easy as it sounds. I feel a little better knowing not even an intelligent machine can pull it off.” 

“I’d feel a little better if I hadn’t blown my cover.” Daisy groaned and shook her head, scolding herself. “I’m pretty sure she’s onto me. She knows I know, I’m sure of it – she’d only have to be one tenth as smart as May to catch that.” 

“You did just nearly have your arm ripped off,” Fitz consoled her. 

“Are you sure she knows?” Radcliffe suddenly sounded worried again. Daisy nodded pitifully.

“She bolted, then I bolted. There was mutual recognition of something super-weird. She might not be self-aware but she’s definitely aware of something.” 

“Hm.” It was short. Thoughtful. Dismissive. Then Radcliffe hauled Daisy out of her seat, and shoved her and Fitz toward the Vault door. 

“You have to get out of here,” Radcliffe insisted. “Aida’s mission is preservation but she may not have been able to translate that properly into the programming of the others – May, and whoever else is out there. I have a sneaking suspicion that poor Nathanson came across something he shouldn’t have, and now you have too, Miss Daisy. And if dear Jemma is following leads elsewhere, it’s likely she’s dug up something untoward by now. It seems Aida is willing to sacrifice an individual few in pursuit of the greater good – that being this project of hers, presumably - and it appears that you are now her top targets.”


	5. Bite the Bullet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sorry for taking so long with this one! I had to shake off The Feels and then I got caught in an anxiety spiral and wasn't up to finishing it ... fun ... but anyway, here it is!
> 
> This is finally the final chapter!! although I may add an epilogue soon
> 
> Please note, this fic completely ignores the actual canon scenario including who is controlling whom etc., it's all self-contained within this fic and any canon parallels are purely coincidental (except like, 2 descriptions I tweaked bc why not).

Simmons’ neck muscles strained painfully, desperate to be free of their trappings despite the fact that no metal cage surrounded her head. There were only the nodes and wires. It was less intrusive than the lie detector tests, but less intrusive in the same way sitting at the huge, strangely comfortable black chairs at Hydra had been. She could feel her control being sapped away and every fibre of her being was fighting it. Her teeth ground together. 

“The sooner you relax, the sooner it will be over,” Aida assured her. “I hope you understand, I do not intend to alter your mind in any way. You will retain full faculties, memories and capacity. This is not a brainwashing, Doctor Simmons. I intended to protect you. I intend to preserve you. That’s all.” 

Though her fingernails scrabbled on the metal arm rests, Simmons breathed until her muscles stopped burning. She’d been in tighter spots than this, and Aida seemed determined not to kill her – unlike many of her previous interrogators. 

“That’s better,” Aida declared proudly, and tapped the screen before her so that it appeared larger on the screen that hung near them on the wall. Simmons saw her brain projected there, lit up in colours where she was using it. (Problem solving, emotional management, task prioritisation). It was a little beautiful. It would have been moreso if Aida hadn’t pinned her arms out of reach of her cellphone, or if the knife was just a little closer to her desperate fingers.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” Aida continued, “while these machines do their work I’d like to ask you a few questions. Partly it’s to pass the time and partly it will help map your brain and your responses. I already have some data thanks to the work Fitz was sharing with Doctor Radcliffe about the virtual reality, and from what Agent May has observed of you, but you are a very brilliant person. It would be a shame to only look so shallow.”

 _And a few hours in a chair is going to make a difference?_ Simmons had the good sense to hold her tongue, but she couldn’t help but felt a little sad for Aida. Did Aida understand truly what sentience was after all? Human sentience? Perhaps she simply hadn’t had it long enough to start to think about all the big questions, and the infinite complexities of life. Simmons’ moods, her thoughts, her answers would always be imperfect, incomplete and inconsistent. Did Aida know that? 

“I understand,” Simmons agreed. “I’m happy to help.” 

The fact that she apparently did not have much choice in the matter, she set aside for the moment in favour of adding – 

“I was just wondering if, in return, you might also help me? You are quite brilliant yourself. If I may, I’d like to ask some more about your project here. Doctor Fitz and I would love to help, I’m sure. When you’re ready, of course.” 

Aida was hesitant, but she agreed, and Simmons traded details of her life, her studies, her philosophies, and her relationships with members of the team, for similar details about Aida’s life and program and goals. Aida talked about her mind-opening experience with the Book, and how overwhelming it all was; how she felt like she was so small and discovering something so large. Simmons could relate to that. She even felt a little sorry that she took advantage of it to fill Aida with questions to which she knew there was no real answer; enough to distract Aida’s insatiable mind from the fact that Simmons was planning her escape route, her obstacles, her order of things, and even speculating on where May might be. Those white capsule-cupboards could make for good short-term storage, but if Aida didn’t want to harm anyone, May would at least need enough room to stand, and probably to sleep. She’d been gone long enough that she must have needed sleep. Bedroom it was, then.

“and - Oh, that _was_ rather brilliant of you.”

A sudden shift in Aida’s tone from wondrous to dangerous snapped Simmons’ attention back front and centre. Aida moved smoothly into Simmons’ line of sight, her eyes narrow, and filled with a graceful sort of rage that was like sugar coating on a poisoned pill. 

“You thought you could distract me.” 

“You are brilliant but you are not infallible.” There was no point playing innocent now. “It is part of the great big world you are discovering. Enjoy.” 

Simmons grinned like a tiger, wishing she could have had the added satisfaction of whipping her wrists out of their cuffs and charging for the door at the end of the sentence. Aida’s eyes widened with the rage of an ice queen, and she snatched the tablet up like she was about to slit Simmons’ throat with it. Terror flooded through Simmons’ veins and she gritted her teeth against it, prepared to kick Aida away with all her might, and fight tooth and nail against whatever was about to happen. She was so fired up that it was not relief, but confusion that drew the fire from her body a moment later, when her cell-phone rang. And rang. And rang. 

Aida fixed curious, penetrating eyes on Simmons’ pocket.

“I’d imagine that would be Vincent,” Simmons suggested. “Informing you as to the whereabouts of our team. It seems he’s heeded your suggestion.” 

“So it seems,” Aida granted. “But we cannot be sure until we answer it.”

Simmons knew it was not any of the main team members. They had their own signature ring tones. And nobody else had reason to be calling her at this very moment except for Mace. She really hoped it wasn’t Mace. She didn’t need him to know that she was tied up like a doomed cow with a roomful of hostages next door. Whether it would give him great satisfaction or leave him disappointed in her, Simmons wasn’t sure, but either one was enough to leave a sour taste in her mouth. 

“Well?” she spat the sourness out instead. “I can hardly answer it!” 

She gestured with a frustrated nod at her bound wrists, and Aida nodded uncomfortably. She moved over toward Simmons, careful to keep to the side out of the way of her legs, and eased the phone from Simmons’ pocket. She answered it briefly and irritably, but was apparently satisfied with the response. Less satisfyingly, she took it with her as she returned to her observation point a few feet away. Simmons knew better than to chase it with her bound body, but she didn’t think fast enough to hide her reaction when, no sooner had Aida returned to her tablet, the cell started ringing again. In Fitz’ ring tone.

Aida’s eyes narrowed in on Simmons before she could school her desperate posture. Disappointed with herself, but all the more desperate for having been caught, Simmons watched with a wounded expression as Aida answered the phone: 

“Hello?” She asked sweetly. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

- 

Fitz hit the red button and cursed under his breath, clenching the phone so tightly anyone else might have been concerned that it would break. It was a struggle to think clearly at this speed, with one hand clenched for dear life on the handle just inside the door of the car and the wrong voice inside his head.

“What is it?” Daisy tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She was speeding as fast as her reflexes would allow, and fought every instinct screaming at her to look over at Fitz and see what was happening.

“Left,” Fitz said, his brain catching up just in time.

Daisy hauled the car around the corner. She was relatively used to driving large vehicles but somehow her van had never seemed as heavy as this. Then again, she’d never pushed it this fast. And it was not bulletproof. 

“What’s up?” she repeated.

“No answer,” Fitz said. “Well. The wrong answer. Aida’s got Jemma’s phone.” 

Daisy felt a pit form in the bottom of her stomach.

“Well that doesn’t…necessarily mean anything,” she offered hesitantly. “Maybe she just wanted to make sure Jemma couldn’t contact anybody, y’know ‘outside’.” 

“Or maybe she wants to pull the ‘old switcheroo’ with Jemma.”

Fitz stared darkly out the window. His arm moved numbly, as if of its own accord, directing Daisy to pull over at Radcliffe’s verge. Daisy took a deep breath as she shut off the engine. They could be facing a clever, violent imitation-Simmons. Or a hostage situation, with each insisting they were the real deal. They could be walking into something big here, but if they waited too long, something big could turn into nothing at all.

“Armed?” Daisy checked, glancing at Fitz as she cocked her own pistol. In the race to get to the car, she hadn’t had time to remind him to grab something.

He blinked, and the cloud of melancholy faded from his eyes, leaving only its sharp shadow behind. It was a little creepy to see the coldness in him, Daisy thought, but if it was going to keep him alive, who was she to argue? Fitz pulled out his own pistol, cocked it, and flung the car door open as if he hated it for being in the way.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Daisy reminded him in a low voice. “Stay behind me.”

She rushed her steps around the car to scoop him behind herself and he reluctantly accepted his position. She was the Agent, she’d done this a hundred times more than he had. And he was hardly in his right mind: he very nearly missed a step up to the threshold, and that wasn’t a good start. 

 _Get your head on straight,_ he growled at himself, digging his heels into the souls of his shoes as if he could force himself into reality and the present. Simmons needed him, and Daisy needed to be able to trust him to have her back. All of a sudden he noticed the crushed grass and bushes by the front window. A smear of blood on the porch pillar. Murmurs and whispers from the front room. 

Poised to push the door open, Daisy glanced back over her shoulder to check he was paying attention. Ready, mind and body humming in unison, Fitz nodded. He signaled his pass-code to her, aiding their mission for subtlety moreso than her blasting the lock might have. Daisy nodded back, tapped in the code…

…and pushed.

- 

Aida slowly crumpled the cellphone in her hand, and let it fall to the floor like a rotten apple. Simmons’ mouth went dry.

“Convenient time for a crank call?” she joked.

Aida put aside the tablet she had been using to monitor Simmons’ readings. She turned her attention on the row of ill-formed bots, tapping each one on the chin. One by one, they lifted their eyes to face her, a row of perfect, unthinking soldiers. Simmons strained out of her seat as much as she could, until the braces dug into her wrists and her bones seemed to fit each other wrong. 

“Aida, what is it?” she asked, maintaining as much of her jovial tone as she could. “I want to help, remember?” 

She’d already burnt that bridge, and Aida knew it. Aida ignored her and left the room, with the tensed posture of a warrior, and followed by her army of prototypes. Simmons ground her teeth together. Fitz had been on the other end of that call. Either he’d hung up on Aida, or Aida had hung up on him, so he knew. He knew Aida had her. He’d be coming. Any second now. 

_Nonononono…._

- 

Fearful eyes looked up at them, and turned to hope. Cowers straightened. The doubtful leader stood to greet them, and then Daisy-Quake’s inviting, calming expression turned hostile.

“DOWN!” she yelled, and the hostages scattered. Daisy blasted a bot back into the hall, and Fitz raised his gun immediately. The others were not deterred. 

“Hello, Leopold,” Aida greeted. She raised a hand like a claw. 

“Where’s Jemma?” Fitz demanded. 

“Safe.” 

Fitz eyed the robots lined up behind Aida skeptically. Several of them were blank or incomplete, like manikins or automatons from an old sci-fi. One was Simmons, her skin oily and strangely textured, her expression too demure for the real Simmons when facing down her enemies. One was Daisy, her face strangely shaped.

The real Daisy studied her robo-copy, and turned her head uncomfortably, narrowing her eyes. 

“Well. That’s creepy.” 

“Are you trying to distract me?” 

Aida’s eyes focused like a hungry bird, on where Vincent was trying as quietly and subtly and possible to open the front door and evacuate his team. Fitz glanced back, seeing this, and instantly pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Aida in the shoulder, and she winced, and then her wince turned into biting rage. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the bullet out and studied it indifferently.

“Pain,” she noted. “I don’t like that.” 

She flicked the bullet to the floor like a dead bug, and the sound of it dropping against the carpet was like the dropping of a flag at a race.

_Aaaand they’re off!_

-

Simmons’ shoes lay discarded by the base of the chair, along with one sock that she had painstakingly pried from her most promising foot. Brow furrowed, she pawed at the bench with her bare foot, toes grabbing at air.

 _Note to self,_ she thought, biting her lip against the pain of her contortions. _More flexibility days._

Finally, she maneuvered Aida’s tablet to the edge of the bench. It was now or never. Bringing her other leg into play she slid the tablet onto them, and kicked both legs higher, forcing the tablet to slide down. Her leg muscles burned. Her face contorted in focus and pain and stress.

 _Now or never.  
_ _Now or never.  
_ _Now or –_

“Oh!” 

She gasped in satisfaction and relief as the tablet reached her lap. She forced her exhausted knees to lift it to within reach of her hands, and worked as quickly as she could to find the release of the clasps. As they slid back below the armrests, Simmons sighed in relief. Her body melted, flopping out of the chair like a fried egg from its pan.

The first part, and the hardest part – she hoped – now over, Simmons became suddenly aware of the sound of plates smashing in the other room. Glass and plaster. Punches and shouts. Gunshots. Daisy. Fitz.

Simmons smiled. 

She struggled to her feet, regrouped, and dashed down the hall to find May, or a phone, or both.

-

 _Elbow, elbow, fist. Bench! (Duck!)_

_Knife!!_

_Twist. Throw._

_Gut!_  

Daisy gave the automaton an extra kick and tossed it aside, then scraped her hair out of her face and looked around the room. Most of the hostages had escaped. Their leader – Vincent, from forensics, apparently – had the fake-Simmons pinned to the arm of the couch with a large knife through her hand. Both of them were eyeing Daisy’s fallen gun, in between the arms of dead, sparking manikins on the living room floor. Fitz ducked and swooped around Aida, reluctant to hurt her but fortunately, just as reluctant to discard his weapon. Conflicted, but not entirely deluded. 

“Fitz!”

She meant to urge him to get on with it, and tell him that she was going to find Simmons, but the moment she realised she had distracted him, she winced. Aida was faster, better, stronger than the automatons Daisy had been fighting, and Fitz barely had time to look at Daisy before Aida had grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall with dizzying force. His grip weakened on his weapon. 

Daisy cursed under her breath, vaulted over the kitchen bench and ran up to them. She hauled Aida backward by her collar. Snarling, Aida turned to check the new threat, giving Fitz time to recover himself and raise his weapon to aim at her. At the back of her neck. One shot. In the back of the neck.

 _One shot.  
_ _In the back?_

“I apologise, Agent Fitz,” Aida said, and turned back to face him with a cruel, cold smile. “Would you prefer to shoot me in the face? 

_It. It’s not a she._

_With a face.  
_ _With a name.  
_ _With life._

Fitz’ hand shook, and the flood of shame and doubt and anger that followed only made it worse. Swallowing hard, Fitz raised his eyes over the crouched, battle-ready Aida, and met Daisy’s eyes, pleading and apologetic. Terrified.

He’d waited too long, and Aida lunged. 

-

Simmons ran through the back of the house pulling open doors as if making up for lost time. How many damn rooms did Radcliffe need? Bathroom. Closet. Closet. Some sort of obscure storeroom. Bedroom. Bedroom. Another bedroom. Was he planning to house some sort of army? (Some sort of robot army?)

Grinding her teeth together, Simmons stood alone in the large bedroom at the end of the hall to catch her breath. It was painted grey. (Don’t paint in grey). The carpet and the bed matched. The whole place looked like soft steel. Simmons’ skin tingled and she resisted the urge to bolt. She’d rather face an army of robots than stay here. Something felt wrong – which meant, usually, that she was approaching something right. 

Suddenly, Simmons realised that it had gone quiet up front. Should she go back, go out there? What would she find? 

May. She had to find May.  
  
A quiet groan from the ensuite set her heart to racing, and she glanced over her shoulder as if to check if anyone was following her, before creeping toward the sound and pushing the door open. 

Simmons jumped, shaken, when it thudded against May’s leg. She closed the door a moment, and opened it again, slower, and stuck her head in to observe. May lay disoriented – drugged, probably – on the tiles. There was a blanket underneath her, and a lush pillow under her head. She wore a loose robe, with an IV drip coming from her hand, twisted a little so that the bag could hang on the towel rack above. At least someone had made an effort to keep her comfortable – as well as sedated. 

Simmons crept into the bathroom and knelt down, and shook May’s shoulder. May was sweating furiously, clinging to consciousness as only May could. Simmons smiled at her and she finally forced her eyes open. 

“We need you,” Simmons whispered. May nodded, and began the struggle to her feet.

-

Fitz stared in horror and disappointment, struggling to catch his breath. His back was against the wall now, knees flopping, gun discarded. Daisy frowned down at her latest victim. 

The light had drained from Aida’s eyes and she sat limp against the kitchen bench, the defeated mirror image of Fitz, except that her head was hanging off her neck, dead circuits bared and frayed.

“Sorry,” Daisy said. Fitz brushed her off, lost for words in more ways than one as he struggled to his feet. Daisy offered her arm, which he gladly took to pull himself to standing. He glanced at her, then back at Aida, then at Daisy again, nodding to himself, still conflicted and shaken but grateful and alive.

“Nice shot,” Daisy praised. 

“…Nice…” Fitz gestured, half-heartedly miming Daisy’s powers. She smiled softly. He wasn’t as battle-ready as she was, but at least he was coming out of it. At least he was coming out of it in time for the noise in the hallway, which set both of them on edge all over again. 

Fitz braced for a fight, and since both of them were unarmed, Daisy braced in front of him, arms raised. Her tingling arms reminded her that she’d have to ask for those new gauntlets when they got back. For now, there was the fight. There was – 

“Jemma?”

Fitz almost collapsed with relief, but he didn’t. Daisy dropped her battle stance and he stepped past her to Simmons, who smiled assuringly at him from under the weight of a barely-conscious May. Her eyes flickered over to Daisy next, whose expression was subtly marked with concern. Even after all this time, she hung back, but at least Simmons’ nod, promising May’s safety and relative health, loosened her tension a little.

Daisy cleared her throat, ducking her head in case the tears she felt on her cheeks were more than just ghosts. 

“So,” she offered. “I guess I’m driving?”


End file.
